Three plays for touchdowns key Bama offense

Saturday

Sep 26, 2009 at 10:53 PM

The Crimson Tide got three touchdowns on plays of 50 yards or longer and parlayed those long-distance strikes into a 35-7 victory at Bryant-Denny Stadium.

TUSCALOOSA | The third-ranked University of Alabama went into Saturday’s game against the Arkansas Razorbacks thinking big. Big as in big plays. The Crimson Tide got three touchdowns on plays of 50 yards or longer and parlayed those long-distance strikes into a 35-7 victory at Bryant-Denny Stadium. In a game where Alabama struggled to get consistent traction in the running game, the big plays made the difference. Three touchdown plays covering 182 yards accounted for almost 43 percent of the Tide’s total offensive output. “From watching film on those guys, I thought we had a pretty good chance of making more plays down the field,” sophomore receiver Marquis Maze said. “The calls were there, so we executed and got it done.” The first two long touchdowns came on back-to-back offensive play calls. One was a routine running play, the other a trick gadget call. On the first, with 9:30 to go in the first half, freshman running back Trent Richardson took a routine run around right end in the pistol formation and turned it into a 52-yard highlight-reel scamper to the end zone. Before he broke free, Richardson shook off no less than four Arkansas defenders. Linebacker Wendel Davis tried to tackle Richardson low and wrap up his legs, but was brushed aside like a Chihuahua nipping at the running back’s heels. Safety Tramain Thomas tried the same thing and got the same result. End Adrian Davis and linebacker Jerry Franklin arrived to lend run support, but the rookie from Pensacola, Fla., left them scattered in his wake. “Trent is an incredible player,” said Alabama defensive end Lorenzo Washington, who has faced Richardson in practice. “He’s going to have, I don’t know how long his career’s going to be here at Alabama, but it’s going to be illustrious. “You can’t bring him down with one man. He’s a little bowling ball — his stature may be a little shorter, but he’s packing a good 220, 225 (pounds) behind that. He’s incredible, especially for a freshman, just unbelievable.” That score put UA up 7-0, and the Tide forced an Arkansas punt that Javier Arenas returned to midfield. From there, Alabama offensive coordinator Jim McElwain reached into his playbook of tricks and came up with a flea-flicker out of the wildcat formation. Running back Mark Ingram took the direct snap and handed to fellow back Terry Grant, who flipped the ball to quarterback Greg McElroy. With Arkansas’ defense caught completely off guard, McElroy heaved a 50-yard touchdown pass to Julio Jones, who broke free to complete the touchdown play. “We’ve been practicing that play for a long time,” Ingram said. “I knew it was going to work. A trick like that, the whole offense gets excited and you just want to execute and make it happen, make it work, so we can keep doing stuff like that.” Jones, who hadn’t scored in Alabama’s last 12 games, took Thomas out of the play to get into the end zone. “I saw he was making up ground real quick. I just kind of stiff-armed him to get him off of me and he tried to grab my leg and I high-stepped,” Jones said. Maze may have made the biggest play of the day for Alabama. Arkansas had just scored in the third quarter to cut the UA lead to 14-7. On the first play after the ensuing kickoff, Maze raced down the right sideline past defensive back Rudell Crim and hauled in a long ball from McElroy, taking it the rest of the way for an 80-yard touchdown. “What happened was they rolled the coverage over to Julio and that left me one-on-one with the corner,” Maze said. “It was a stutter, like a stop-and-go, and once I saw him bite on the stop I just ran past him and made the play. “After the ball was in my hands, I just used my speed.”

Reach Tommy Deas at tommy.deas@tuscaloosanews.com or at 205-722-0224.

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